"Faith, sor, you haven't tould us yit how ye come by this wound in your leg, an' about that poor chap in yander," he said to the colonel, nodding his head in the direction of Captain Applegarth's inner state cabin, where the French captain was lying in his cot. "Sure, we're dyin' to hear the end of your scrimmage with those black divvles!"

Colonel Vereker heaved a sigh.

"Well, I ought not to doubt that the good God is watching over my little, darling daughter after what I have just learnt, my friends," said he in a more hopeful tone than his depressed manner indicated, looking round at us with his large, melancholy, dark eyes. "I ought not to despair!"

"Certainly not, sir; I dare say we'll soon overhaul the ship now, for we're more than an hour and a half in chase of her at full speed," remarked the skipper, recovering himself from his fit of abstraction and looking at his watch to see the time. "Go on, colonel; go on, please, and tell us the end of your story."

"There is little more for you to hear, sir," replied the other, settling himself back in his seat again, after Mr O'Neil had once more dressed the wound in his leg. "Before it was dark that terrible night I sent Elsie below, while Captain Alphonse with myself stayed up on the poop for the first watch, each of us with a loaded revolver, besides having a box of cartridges handy on the skylight near by, should we want to replenish our ammunition. But the Haytians, sir, had evidently had enough of us for that evening, making no further attempts to attack us as the hours wore on.

"They were as watchful as ourselves, though, for as Cato, anon, trying to creep forwards so as to release the French sailors confined under the main hatchway, had a narrow escape of his life, a heavy spar being suddenly let down by the run almost on top of his head when he ventured out on the exposed deck. This was at midnight, when the second mate, Basseterre, and Don Miguel, with the French sailor Duval, relieved Captain Alphonse and me, taking the middle watch.

"Next morning, however, soon after Captain Alphonse and I, with the little Englishman, had resumed charge of the poop and the others were resting—alas, my friends, without my knowledge or sanction, poor Cato made another attempt to reach the hatchway, which, unfortunately resulted in his death!

"Hearing Ivan growl and my little daughter cry out as if something had frightened her, I had gone down to the cabin shortly after daylight to see what was the matter, cautioning Captain Alphonse, who hardly needed my caution, not to leave his post for a moment, and not thinking of Cato, who had disappeared from the top of the companion-way and had gone below to Elsie—heard her cry, I thought, and gone to her even before myself.

"He was not in the cabin, however; nor did I find anything much the matter with my child, who had evidently unconsciously cried out in some dream she had, Ivan, of course, gushing in sympathy and waking her up. So, telling Elsie to compose herself and go off to sleep again, as everything was going on all right and there was nothing to be alarmed about, beyond the snoring of Monsieur and Madame Boisson at the further end of the cabin, I, feeling greatly relieved, returned on deck.

"I looked round for Cato at once, naturally, for our forces were not so strong that one would not be missed, especially such a one as he!

"But my faithful negro was nowhere in sight! Captain Alphonse said, too, he had not seen him during my absence below, nor indeed, for some time prior to my going down to the cabin.

"I then searched the wheel-house aft without discovering him.

"'Cato!' I called out, 'where are you? Come here immediately!'

"My poor servant did not answer, but that black fiend, the pseudo 'marquis' advanced from the forepart of the deck, sheltering himself, you may be sure, from my aim in the rear of the windlass bitts, which were in a line between us.

"'You will have to call louder,' he cried with a mocking laugh like that of a hyena, and full of devilish glee. 'I assure you, much louder, my friend, before that spy slave of yours will ever be able to answer you again!'

"Heavens! I feared the worst then. Poor Cato! They had caught him reconnoitring.

"'What have you done with him, you son of Satan?' I yelled out, full of rage and anger, and with a terrible foreboding. 'If you have hurt a hair of his head I will make you pay dearly for it, I can tell you, you fiend!'

"The malicious, murdering wretch only replied to my threat with another mocking laugh, which his companions echoed, as if enjoying a joke, while I noticed them dragging at a shapeless mass from the forecastle forwards.

"'Kick the carrion aft!' I heard the inhuman brute say to his followers. 'Let the "white trash" see the dog's carcass! He will then believe what I have said, Name of God! and know what is in store for himself!'

"My God! Senor Applegarth and you, gentlemen, I can hardly tell you what followed. It is all too horrible.

"The sight of what I saw will haunt me to my grave!

"For the shapeless mass I had observed slowly raised itself up from the deck, and I saw that it was my poor Cato. The savages had hacked the unfortunate man to pieces with their knives!

"He recognised me, poor creature, and appeared to try to speak, but only made an inarticulate noise between a sob and a groan that rings in my ears now, while the blood gushed from his mouth as he fell forwards, facing me, dead, huddled up in a heap again upon the deck!

"Those devils incarnate, besides mutilating his limbs, had, would you believe it, cut out his tongue as they had before threatened, for warning us of their treachery!"

"God in heaven!" exclaimed Captain Applegarth, stopping in his quick walk up and down the saloon and bringing his fist down on the table with a bang that made the glasses in the swinging tray above jump and rattle, two of them indeed falling over and smashing into fragments on the floor. "The infernal demons! Can such things be? It is dreadful!"

All of us were equally horror stricken and indignant at the colonel's terrible recital, even old Mr Stokes waking up and stretching out his hand to the skipper, as if pledging himself to what he wished to urge before he spoke.

"Horrible, horrible, sir!" he panted out, his anger taking away his breath and affecting his voice. "But we'll avenge the poor fellow and kill the rascals when we come up with them, won't we, sir? There's my hand on it, anyway!"

I did not and could not say anything; no, I couldn't; but you can pretty well imagine the oath I mentally registered.

Not so Garry O'Neil, though.

The Irishman's face flamed with rage and anger. "Kill them, sor!" cried he, springing to his feet from the chair in which he had been seated alongside the colonel, whose injured limb he had been carefully attending to again all the while, his reddish beard and moustache bristling, and his steel-blue eyes flashing out veritable sparks, it seemed of fire. "Faith, killin's too good for 'em, sure, the haythen miscreants! I'd boil 'em alive, sor, or roast 'em in the stoke-hold, begorrah, if I had me own way with 'em. I would, sor, so hilp me Moses, if all the howly saints, whose names be praised, an' the blessed ould Pope, too, prayed me to spare 'em. Och, the murtherin' bastes, the daymans, the divvles!"

He was almost beside himself in his rage and passionate invective. So much so, indeed, that Mr Stokes, despite his own hearty sympathy with the like cause, looked at the infuriated Irishman in great trepidation, for his face was flushed, and his hair seemed actually to stand on end, while his words tumbled out of his mouth pell-mell, jostling each other in their eagerness to find utterance.

The chief really fancied, I believe, that he had suddenly gone mad, as he literally fumed with fury.

After a few moments, however, Garry cooled down a bit, restraining himself by a violent effort, and he turned to his whilom patient with an apologetic air.

"Faith, sor, I fancied I had that divvle, your fri'nd, the markiss, sure, be the throat," said he, with a feeble attempt at a grin and biting his lips to keep in his feelings while he dropped his arms, which he had been whirling round his head like a maniac only just before. "By the powers, wouldn't I throttle the baste swately, if I had hould of him once in these two hands of mine!"

Colonel Vereker stretched out both his impulsively, and gripped those of Garry O'Neil.

"Heavens!" he cried, with tears in his eyes. "You are a white man, sir. I can't say more than that, and I am proud to know you!"

"Och, niver moind that, colonel," said the Irishman, putting aside the compliment, the highest the colonel thought he could give. "Till us what you did, sure, afther the poor maimed crayture was murthered by that Haytian divvle. Faith, I loathe the baste. I hate him like pizen, though I haven't sane him yit, more's the pity; but it'll be a bad job for him when I do clap my peepers on him!"

"I could not do much," said the other, proceeding with his account of the struggle with the mutineers on board the Saint Pierre, "but Captain Alphonse and myself emptied our revolvers at the scoundrels and floored three of them before they retreated back into the forecastle; but the 'marquis,' the greatest scoundrel of the whole lot, escaped scot free, though I fired four shots at him point blank as he dodged behind the mainmast and windlass bits, keeping well under cover, and mocking my efforts to get a straight aim. The villain, I think, bears a charmed life!"

"Niver you fear, sor," put in Garry, in answer to this remark. "His father, ould Nick, is keepin' him for somethin' warm whin I git hould of him. Faith, sor, you can bet your boots on that, sure!"

Colonel Vereker smiled sadly at the impulsive Irishman's remark. He could see that he had moved every fibre of his feeling heart and warm nature and that he was following every incident of his terrible story of atrocities and sufferings with an all-engrossing interest.

"I rushed to the poop-ladder to make for the mocking brute, intending to grip him by the neck, as you have suggested, sir," said he, "when, by heavens, I would have choked the life out of his vile carcass!

"But Captain Alphonse prevented me.

"'My God! dear friend,' he cried, catching hold of me round the body in his powerful arms, so that I could not move a step. 'Remember the little one, your little daughter, who would have no one to protect her should these rabble kill you. Besides, my friend, the good Cato is dead now, and the useless sacrifice of your life, of both our lives probably, if you go forwards, and perhaps too the life of the little one, who cannot even help herself, will never bring back the breath to the brave lad's body! No, no, colonel, I promise you,' said he, at the same time kissing the tips of his fingers and elevating his shoulders, in his French fashion, 'We will do something better than that. Only wait; be patient. We will avenge him, you will see, but I pray you do nothing rash, for the sake of the little one.'"



CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

ALL ADRIFT.

"Aye, colonel," sang out the skipper, as if in response to these words of the French captain, "to avenge him; that's what all of us here have sworn to do, I know, for I can answer for them as if I were speaking for myself. Yes, and so we will, too. We'll avenge him—the poor fellow whom they butchered. We will, by George!"

"Begorrah!" exclaimed Garry O'Neil. "You can count on me for one on that job, as I tould ye before, and I don't care how soon we begin it, cap'en!"

"And me too," put in old Mr Stokes, again becoming very enthusiastic. "The whole lot must be punished, sir, when we catch them!"

"I thought so," said the skipper, looking round at us and then turning to the colonel with a proud air. "You see, sir, we're all unanimous; for I can answer for this lad Haldane, here, though the poor chap's too bashful to speak for himself!"

"I know what the gallant youth can do already," said the other, looking at me kindly as I held up my head like the rest, but with a very red face. "Thank you, gentlemen all, for your promises. Well, then, on my friend Captain Alphonse putting the matter in the way he did, to make an end of my story, I held back, and all that day—it was last Saturday—we remained on the defensive, we five holding the after part of the ship, and the Haytians and mutineers of our crew the forecastle. All of us, though, kept on the watch; they looking out for land, we for help in response to our signal flag half-mast high.

"But neither party saw what they looked out and longed for; no corner of land on the horizon gratified the desire of their eyes, no ship hove in sight to bless ours with the promise of relief!

"The next morning, Sunday, it came on to blow, and our vessel was taken aback and nearly foundered. Fortunately, though, the mutineers not interfering, most of them being seasick forwards, Captain Alphonse and Basseterre started down into the waist to cast off all the sheets and halliards they could reach, letting everything fly; whereupon we drove before the wind and so escaped any mishap from this source, at all events!

"Probably on account of their prostration from the effects of sea- sickness, our enemies did not molest us in any way throughout the day; but towards the morning my little Elsie came up the companion-way in a state of great terror, saying she heard a sort of scratching in the hold below, and that Ivan, her dog, was growling as if he smelt somebody trying to get in, though we could not hear the dog on deck from the noise of the wind and sea, and a lot of loose ropes and swinging spars which were making a terrible row aloft.

"I went down at once with her, and without even taking the trouble to listen I could clearly distinguish the sound of tapping beneath the cabin deck, despite the confused jabbering of Monsieur Boisson, and the shrill tones of his wife.

"I knelt down then and put my ear to the planking, Monsieur Boisson watching me with his bottle-brush sort of hair standing straight up on end with fright, and Madame, who I thought had more courage than he, though such, evidently, I now saw was not the case—well, she was rolling on one of the saloon settees in a fit of hysterics, screaming and yelling at the top of her voice.

"'Who's there?' I called out in French. 'Are you one of those Haytians, or a friend and one of us? Answer! I will know who it is when you speak!'

"'I am a friend!' came back instantly in Spanish. 'Let me out, sir; I am nearly stifled down here. The three of us who were locked in the main hatch have worked through the cargo and broken the after bulkhead, making our way here, but we can't get out of this, for the trap is fastened down, sir!'

"It was Pedro Gomez, the steward, who had gone down into the hold with two of the white sailors just before the outbreak of the mutiny to obtain some salt pork and other food for the use of the very scoundrels who had imprisoned them, and who, probably, believed they had all three died by this time, like poor Cato, only through suffocation, instead of being murdered as he was!

"Needless to say, I immediately drew back the bolts of the hatchway cover leading down into the after-hold, which was just under the flooring of little Elsie's cabin, and released the three, overjoyed not only at finding alive those whom we had thought dead, but doubly so at having such a welcome addition to our small force of five—I couldn't rely upon that coward Boisson—opposed as we were to the thirty, whom the enemy still mustered, after deducting those we shot.

"Why, with this adventitious aid, we could now attack the cursed wretches in their stronghold, instead of our merely remaining on the defensive, waiting for them to assail us, as we had been forced to do all along!

"I thought it best, however, not to let the Haytian scoundrels know of this increase to our strength until the morrow, believing that if we waited till daylight we might be able to take them more completely then by surprise and ensure a victory; for in the dark we might get mixed up and, firing at random, hit our friends as well as our foes. So I went up above and spoke to Captain Alphonse, who agreed with me about it, and we planned a pleasant little fete for the morning.

"This broke auspiciously enough, the sun rising on a tolerably calm sea, while the strong wind of the previous evening had graduated down to a gentle breeze from the south-west.

"But hardly had we made all our arrangements as to the distribution of arms and settling our form of attack, when our plans were upset by the villainous 'marquis' advancing aft with a pistol in his hand, supported by another of the scoundrels, a negro like himself from Port au Prince, and black as a coal, but a regular giant in size, and who likewise held a revolver.

"Heavens! They had previously been without firearms, wherein lay our superiority in spite of numbers; but these weapons now put us almost on level terms, notwithstanding the reinforcement we had received.

"'Where could they have got 'em, sir?' said little Mr Johnson to me, he and Captain Alphonse and myself being in counsel together at the time, it being the watch below of Don Miguel and Basseterre and the sailor Duval, all three of whom were asleep in the wheel-house, recruiting for their night duty. 'They didn't have no firearms yesterday, colonel, I'll swear. Do you think they've murdered the mate and bo'sun forrads, and robbed 'em?'

"As a similar idea flashed through my mind, that devil, the 'marquis,' answered the little Englishman's question as I, too, had feared!

"'Oh! my friend,' he called out, as I covered him with my revolver from my rampart behind the poop-rail on the top of the ladder, where a roll of tarpaulin served us for shelter. 'Don't be too handy with your pistol. We have got firearms too, now. Stop a minute. I have got something to say to you.'

"'You had better make haste with your speech, then,' said I. 'My finger is itching to pull the trigger, and you know, to your cost, I'm a dead shot!'

"'You will not do much good by killing me,' he retorted with that mocking hyena laugh of his, which always exasperated me so much. 'I want to tell you that we know you have got three more men with you now than you had yesterday, for we searched the hold this morning and found the nest empty and the birds flown. But recollect, my friend, we can get to you aft through the cargo, in the same way as those white-livered wretches have done!'

"'Bah! I'm not afraid of your threats, you black devil,' I replied, although my heart went down to my boots at the thought of my darling child being caught unawares and being left to the mercy of such demons. 'We have scuttled the after part of the ship, and at the least noise being heard in the hold we will let in the water and drown you all like rats in a hole, and see how you like that!'

"This idea, which occurred to me on the spur of the instant, evidently impressed the scoundrel, for I could see a change come over his ugly face.

"'Let us make a compromise,' he suggested after a pause, during which he whispered to his companion, the giant negro, both keeping much behind the mainmast. 'You can take that boat you have there at the stern, the lot of you, if you like, and leave us the ship.'

"'My word, that's a very good proposal, marquis,' said Captain Alphonse, coming to my side. 'You won't interfere with us, I suppose, if we go away and give you absolute power to do what you please with the Saint Pierre, eh?'

"'Assuredly not, my friend; we promise that,' eagerly replied the scoundrel, deceived by the manner of my poor friend. 'You can take anything you like of your personal effects too; you and the other whites.'

"'Ah, but my friend, you are too good!' said Captain Alphonse, firing quickly as he spoke at the 'marquis,' who had incautiously exposed himself, thinking we had been gulled by his proposal and were ready to fall into the trap he had cunningly prepared for us. 'Take that, you pig, for my answer!'

"His revolver gave out a sharp crack, and simultaneously with the report, the other's pistol fell from his hand, the scoundrel's elbow being shattered by the shot.

"Ere I could send a shot in the same direction to finish him off, the big negro, who had accompanied him to the front, instantly dragged back the 'marquis,' howling with rage and pain, behind the shelter of the mainmast; and then, picking up his revolver for him, the two of them blazed amongst us pretty securely from that retreat, without, however, doing any damage to our side. A bullet of mine, though, flattened the big negro's nose a little more than Nature had already done for him, and which did not improve his beauty, as you can well believe.

"We kept on popping away at them whenever we saw we had a shot, the whole of this day; well, that was only yesterday, but appears ages ago to me, sirs! We kept on firing without materially diminishing their strength, but they only replied feebly to our fire, with an occasional shot fired at intervals, making up by their shouting and demoniacal yells for their failure to harm us more effectively.

"From this we became convinced that they were obliged to husband their ammunition, having no more cartridges beyond those still remaining in the chambers of the revolvers they were using, which had been loaded when served out to Monsieur Henri and the boatswain, to whom the weapons originally belonged. There was, likewise, little doubt but that the mutineers had robbed those poor fellows, after murdering them like poor Cato, in the forecastle, as the little Englishman had surmised.

"Towards sunset, later on in the afternoon—last night that was—Senor Applegarth, remember, we sighted your vessel in the distance.

"Heavens! She looked to us in our desperate strait as an angel of mercy might appear to the spirits of the damned in hell; and, at once, the thought of abandoning our accursed ship, which that fiend of a black 'marquis' unwillingly suggested, rapidly matured itself into a resolve.

"But our intentions in carrying out this determination were very different to his, for we believed that, with your help, we should the sooner be able to overcome the rascally gang, and re-conquer the vessel we might be compelled, ere long, to surrender, all of us now being pretty well worn out with the struggle!

"'This is grand! this is magnificent!' cried Captain Alphonse, when I unfolded this scheme to him; for, sirs, I may say with pardonable pride, it was my plan entirely. 'It is good tactique to beat the retreat sometimes in war. They retreat that they may the more easily advance!'

"Don Miguel was also of a like opinion, and so was the little Englishman, Mr Johnson, whose snobbishness had by this time been completely put in the shade by his manly pluck and straightforwardness; while, as for Basseterre, the mate, and the French sailors, they implicitly believed all that Captain Alphonse approved of must infallibly be right!

"Our first idea was to attract your attention without letting the Haytians see what we were up to, as, to the best of our belief, they had no inkling of your proximity; so we were puzzling our brains how to let you learn our need in some quiet way, when little Mr Johnson suggested our burning a devil, composed of wet gunpowder piled up in the form of a cone. This was accordingly done, and the 'devil,' when lit, placed on the top of the wheel-house, all the rest of those around discharging their revolvers in rapid succession at the rascals on the forecastle to take off their attention while the firework fizzed and flared up.

"This signal, however, sirs, did not appear to be observed by your vessel."

"It was, though," interposed the skipper. "We thought you were burning a blue light to let us read your name astern, but you were too far off for that!"

"Ah! we did not know that, and the failure discouraged us," replied the colonel. "Still, whether we were observed or not, we noticed your steamer was lying-to, and we made up our minds to try and reach her if possible, should we be able to get out of the Saint Pierre before those rascally blacks got wind of our scheme and tried to prevent our leaving.

"So we set about our preparations forthwith.

"The four French sailors were ordered to prepare the boat which hung from the stern davits and to get it ready for lowering, it being now dark enough to conceal their movements, while Captain Alphonse and Basseterre kept guard over the approach to the poop on our side, and Don Miguel and the Englishman defended the other ladder leading up from the lower deck.

"Leaving these at their respective stations, I went down into the saloon, accompanied by Pedro Gomez, the steward, to procure some tinned meats and biscuits, with some barricoes of water and other things to provision the boat, intending also to warn Monsieur and Madame Boisson of our contemplated departure; not forgetting also, you may be sure, to make every arrangement for the safety of my child, who, with the dog, her constant companion, had remained below with the ex-milliner and her husband, though these two had retired to their cabin, whence I could not get them to stir, either by threat of being left behind or any entreaty. No, they were both as obstinate as mules in their cowardice and foolish fears!

"Madame declared they had been 'betrayed,' and asserted they could 'die but once'; while monsieur, 'le brave Hercule,' on his part, said he 'washed his hands of all responsibility.' It was not his affair, he considered himself perfectly satisfied, and gave me to understand he would not interfere on either side, except, I expect, the victorious one!

"Finding all remonstrances in vain, I was just going to force them away against their will, when suddenly there came a loud shout from the deck above, and the hasty tramp of feet overhead, which was at once responded to by Madame Boisson with a shriek at the top of her voice, while monsieur cursed everybody in a whining voice.

"Telling Elsie to stop where she was until I returned for her, I rushed up the companion-way, followed by Pedro Gomez, only to find everything all but lost!

"The French sailors, it seems, so Mr Johnson told me afterwards in a few hurried words of explanation, had 'got into a fog' over the falls of the boat they had been sent to lower, and seeing the clumsy way they were setting to work at the job, both Basseterre and Captain Alphonse thoughtlessly left their post to show the men the proper way to do the task ordered. Alas! though, in a second, while the whole lot of them all had their backs turned to the Haytians, these demons, grasping the opportunity in a moment, rushed up on the poop by the port-ladder way, now unguarded!

"Captain Alphonse, hearing the noise of their approach, faced about, fronting his foes like a tiger at bay, and drew his revolver from his belt.

"But, sir, he was too late!

"Ere he could put up his hand to guard himself, for I could see it all in an instant, as I emerged from the companion-hatchway, the giant negro, who had abandoned his pistol for a hand-spike, brought down this fearful weapon with a tremendous thwack on the side of my poor friend's head with the result you have seen."

"Aye, faith," said Garry O'Neil. "It must have been a terrible blow, sure, sor!"

"It was," replied the colonel grimly. "It knocked him down like a bullock, and then, before I could interfere, the big brute took up Captain Alphonse, all bleeding and senseless as he was, but still breathing, and chucked him into the sea.

"That was the negro's last act, however; for, as he broke into a huge guffaw of triumph over the ghastly deed, I fired my revolver, the barrel of which I shoved almost into his mouth and blew his brains out!"

"Hooray!" exclaimed the impulsive Garry O'Neil on hearing this. "Faith, I ounly wish, colonel, I had been there with ye. Begorrah, I'd have made 'em hop at it, sure, I bet, sor!

"After that," continued the narrator, we had some stiff work for five minutes or so, but by keeping the skylight between us, the continuous fire of our four revolvers at such short range proved too much for them, and we succeeded in driving the blacks off the poop. The whole lot of them retreated back to the forecastle, leaving five of their number dead about the decks, besides half a dozen or so of the others badly wounded; all of us, fortunately, escaping with only a few slight bruises from blows from the Haytian's clubs and hand-spikes—the only weapons they used.

"All save poor Captain Alphonse, that is; for it was only when the coast was clear of the scoundrels and the poop safe again that I had time to think of him.

"Pedro Gomez, remaining with Basseterre and one of the sailors, to guard the port-ladder way with their six-shooters loaded and levelled in front, commanding all approach aft, in the same way as the mate and poor Captain Alphonse had done in the first instance, I went off with all haste to the stern gallery to see what had become of my unfortunate friend, taking the other three sailors with me, for though taking part in the general scrimmage when the blacks invaded the poop so unexpectedly, Don Miguel and Johnson had stuck valiantly to their post by the starboard rail, and so I had no fear of another surprise on now proceeding aft.

"It was still light enough to distinguish objects near, and as I looked over the side, what was my astonishment to see his body yet afloat, not far from the ship. Aye, sir, there he was; and, stranger still, as my eye caught sight of him, the poor fellow, unconsciously, no doubt, raised one hand out of the dark water with a quick, convulsive action, just as though he were beckoning to me and imploring me to save him!

"On noticing this—a fact, of course, which showed plainly enough that he was still alive—without thinking of what I was doing, I jumped on a projecting bollard and dived from the deck of the ship into the sea.

"I soon rose to the surface, when, swimming up to the almost lifeless body in a few strokes, I caught hold of a portion of the poor fellow's clothing and commenced turning it towards the stern of the vessel just underneath the davits, whence the boat we had been preparing for our flight was suspended all ready for lowering, and with the French sailors standing by above.

"'Look sharp!' I sang out to them from the water. 'Look sharp, there! Lower away!'

"In their haste and flurry, however, the men mistook my order, and thinking I had said 'cut away,' instead of 'lower away,' one of the fools, who held a cutlass he had caught up to defend himself with when those infernal niggers rushed at us, the confounded idiot made a sweeping cut at the falls from which the boat hung, severing them at one blow!

"Down came the little craft at once with a splash, almost on the top of me; and though she managed to ship some water through her sudden immersion, she quickly righted herself on an even keel, right side up."

"By George, I'd have keel-hauled 'em wrong side down!" cried the skipper, out of all patience at hearing of this piece of gross stupidity. "The damned awkward lubbers!"

"Yes, sir; French sailors are not like English ones, nor do they resemble our American shellbacks, who do know a thing or two!" replied the colonel. "Well, gentlemen, to make an end of my story, I may tell you that I had some difficulty in lifting the body of poor Captain Alphonse into the boat when I had clutched hold of the gunwale; but after a time I succeeded in getting him into the bows, rolling him over the side anyhow.

"Then I tried to get in myself by the stern, and had just flung one of my legs over when that villain the black 'marquis,' catching sight of me from the forecastle, ahead of which the boat somehow or other had drifted by this time, fired at me with probably the last cartridge he had left in his pistol, and which the devil no doubt had reserved for me."

"Be jabers!" exclaimed Garry O'Neil, unable to keep silent any longer. "The baste! An', sure, that's how you came by that wound in the groin, faith?"

"Yes, sir, doctor. The shot struck me when I was all of a heap, and where it went heaven only knows, till you probed the wound and extracted the bullet.

"I must have tumbled into the boat while in a state of insensibility, like poor Captain Alphonse, for I do not recollect anything that occurred immediately after I felt the sting of the shot as I was hit, and when I came to myself again I was horrified to find I was far away from the ship, which I could only dimly discern in the distance.

"But this did not daunt me at first, for I thought I should be able to row alongside again and get taken aboard through one of the stern ports; but, will you believe it, when I came to search the boat for the oars, which Basseterre had expressly told those clumsy sailors in my hearing to be sure to put into the boat the very first thing of all, can you credit it? lo and behold, not a scull nor oar was in her; not a stick of any sort or kind whatever!"

"The lubbers!" said Captain Applegarth, indignant again as he paced backwards and forwards impatiently, casting an occasional hurried glance at the "tell-tale" suspended from the deck above the saloon table, the shifting dial of which showed we were now changing course to the westward. "The damned lubbers; the damn—"

The colonel here broke in with— "This discovery, I think, broke my heart," cried he, heaving a heavy sigh. "It took the last flickering gleam of hope away from me, and I sank back again to the bottom of the boat, appalled and terrified in my mind by the reflections and thoughts, of what might happen to my darling child and those others whom I had left on board the Saint Pierre, deprived at one fell blow of both Captain Alphonse and myself.

"When daylight dawned after a night that seemed a century long, so full of pain and awful thought it was to me, I saw the Saint Pierre low down on the horizon, to the westward of where I and my poor friend, Captain Alphonse, were drifting on the desert sea. The sight of the ship again, even in the distance, and the warmth of the sun's bright beams, which made the stagnant blood circulate in my veins once more, gave me hope and renewed courage, for I recollected and thought that after all, there were eight white men still left on board the ill-fated vessel to keep possession of her and defend my little one—eight good men and true, not counting that dastardly coward Boisson, who was skulking below!

"But, sir, the wind and tide wafted the Saint Pierre away beyond my vision; and—and—sirs, the—the end of it all you all know better than I can tell you!"

"Aye," put in the skipper, "we saw your boat adrift—at least, old Masters did—I'll give him the credit for that. Then we picked you up, and here you are!"

Hardly had the skipper uttered these words, completing the colonel's story, when Mr Fosset suddenly poked his head through the skylight over the after end of the saloon, the hatch of which opened out on the deck of the poop above.

Nor was the first mate merely satisfied with the abrupt intrusion of his figurehead into our midst, for he rattled the glass of the skylight in no very gentle fashion at the same time, the better, I suppose, to attract our attention, though we were all staring open-mouthed at him already, all startled by his unexpected appearance on the scene.

But he rattled the glass all the same as he looked down upon us, none the less; aye, all the more, rattled it with a will, frightening us all!

"Hi! Cap'en, Cap'en Applegarth!" he sang out at the very top of his voice, as excited as you please. "That ship's in sight! the ship's in sight, at last, sir. She's hull down to leeward about seven miles off! But we're overhauling her fast now, sir, hand over hand!"



CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

WITHIN HAIL.

"By George! is that so?" ejaculated the skipper, starting off with a mad clutch at his cap, which he had thrown off on to a locker close by in the heat of his excitement during the colonel's yarn. "I'll be on the bridge in a jiffey! Thank God for that news!"

"Hooray!" shouted Garry O'Neil, as we all immediately jumped from our seats on hearing this joyful intelligence, long though it had been in coming, even the poor colonel, sliding his bandaged leg off its supporting chair and standing on his feet, prepared to follow the skipper on deck without a moment's delay. "Be the powers! I knew we'd overhaul them divvles before sundown! Faith, an' I tould ye so, colonel; I tould ye so, you know I did!"

But just then an unexpected interruption arrested us as we all moved towards the companion-way to regain the deck above.

"Look here, colonel," cried a voice from the skipper's state room aft, where the commander of the Saint Pierre was supposed to be reposing in an almost insensible condition. "Get out of here! you are not worth being angry with."

"Begorrah, it's your poor fri'nd in there!" said Garry O'Neil to the colonel. "What's the poor crayture parleyvooing about, instid of slaypin' loike a Christian whin he's got the chance? Sure, I'll have to stop his jaundering there, or he'll niver git betther!"

"Stay a moment; he's beginning again, poor fellow," remarked the colonel, holding up his hand.

"Listen!"

"You villains! take that!" called out the Frenchman in a louder key and in a tone of anger, as if battling with the blacks on board the Saint Pierre over again; and then, after a pause we heard a piteous cry. "My God! they are going to shoot me! Look! Look! To the rescue, colonel, quickly, quickly, to the rescue."

"Bedad, he's in a bad way entoirely!" said Garry, as he and the colonel, with myself at their heels, entered the after cabin, where we saw Captain Alphonse sitting up in the skipper's cot, and gesticulating frantically. "What can he be after sayin' now, sor?"

"He is going over the boat scene on the poop of our unfortunate vessel, when the Haytian blacks, as I told you, made at him and the other sailor before I rushed up from below, too late to save him, poor fellow!" explained the colonel. "He's calling out for help, as I suppose he did then, though I didn't hear him!"

"It sounds moighty queer, anyhow," continued the Irishman. "Whisht! There, he's at it again! What does that extraordinary lingo mean now? I can't make h'id nor tale of it, sor!"

"Hoist the flag immediately! Close furl the main topsail!" exclaimed the poor wounded man in short jerky sentences, as he sat up there in the swinging cot, with his hands tearing at the bandage that was bound round his head, looking as if he had just risen from the dead, and reminding me of a picture I once saw depicting the raising of Lazarus. His eyes were rolling, too, in wild delirium, and after gazing at us fixedly for a second or two without a sign of recognition on his pallid face, he fell back prostrate again on the mattress, crying out in a pitiful wail, "Alas, for the ship! Too late, too late, too late."

"Heavens!" said the colonel, turning to Garry. "Can't you do anything for him?"

"I'll put somethin' coolin' on the dressin', an' that'll make the poor chap's h'id aisier," replied the other, suiting the action to the word. "Ice, sure, 'ud be betther; but, faith, there isn't a morsel aboard!"

Whatever he did apply, however, had a quieting influence, and presently, after tossing from side to side convulsively, Captain Alphonse closed his great staring eyes and began to snore stertorously.

"Heaven be praised!" cried Colonel Vereker. "He's sleeping again, now!"

"Faith, an' a good job, too, for him, poor crayture," said Garry. "He's in a bad way, I till you, sor! an' he'd betther die aisy whin he's about it, sure, than kickin' up a row that won't help him."

"What!" returned the colonel. "Do you think he's going to die?"

"Begorrah, all the docthers in the worrld wouldn't save him!"

"My poor friend, my poor friend!" cried the colonel. "I will stay with him then, to the end, so as to soothe his last moments!"

There was evidently a struggle going on in Colonel Vereker's mind between his desire to do his duty, as he thought, to the dying man, and his natural anxiety to be on deck participating in all the excitement of the chase after the runaway ship and the coming fight with the Haytians, when the black rascals would be called to a final account for all the misery and bloodshed they had caused.

Garry O'Neil saw this, and pooh-poohed the idea of the colonel remaining below.

"Faith, there ain't the laste bit of good, sor, in yer stoppin' down here at all, at all," said he in his brisk, energetic way. "The poor chap won't be afther stirrin' ag'in for the next two hours or more; an' if he does, bedad, he won't ricognise ye, or any one ilse for that matther!"

"But, sir doctor—"

"Houly Moses! I till you, colonel, there ain't no use in your stoppin' another minnit!" impatiently cried the good-natured Irishman, interrupting his half-hearted expostulator. "Jist you clear out of this at once, an' go on deck an' say the foightin' with those murtherin' bleyguards. I'll moind my paychant now till that old thaife Weston's finished all the schraps lift in the plates an' bottles from lunch; an' thin, faith, he shall take charge of him an' I'll come up too, to say the foon. Now, be off wid ye, colonel, dear; you'll say the poor chap ag'in afther the rumpus is over. Dick Haldane, me darlint, hind the colonel the loan of yer arrum, alannah. There, now off ye both go. Away wid ye!"

So saying, he fairly pushed us out of the cabin; and, the colonel limping by my side and using my shoulder as a crutch, as he had previously done, we both went up the companion-ladder, and gained the poop.

The scene here presented a striking contrast to that we had just left, the fresh air, bright sun, and sparkling sea all speaking of life and movement, in exchange for the stuffy atmosphere of the darkened saloon and its association of illness and approaching death.

A stiff breeze was blowing now from the southward, and running, as we were, to the northward, right before it, the skipper had ordered all our square sails forward to be set so as to take every advantage of the wind, in addition to our steam-power, the old barquey prancing away full speed ahead, with her topsails and fore canvas bellied out to their utmost extent, their leech lifting occasionally with a flicker as she outran the breeze and the clew-gallant blocks rattling as the sheets slackened and grew taut again, while the wind hummed through the canvas aloft like a thousand bees buzzing about the rigging.

The black smoke, too, was rushing up the funnel and whirling in the air overhead, uncertain which direction to take, from the speed of the vessel inclining it to trail away aft, while the stiff southerly breeze blew it forwards; so we carried it all along with us, hung up above our dog vane like an awning as we careered onwards, raising a deep furrow of swelling water on either side as we cut through the dancing sunlit waves, and leaving a long white wake astern that shone through the blue, far away behind in the distance, to where sea and sky melted into one, far away on the horizon line.

Old Masters, the boatswain, was on the poop when the colonel and I came up from below, in the very act of hauling in the patent log to ascertain our speed.

"Well," said I, as he looked at the index of the ungainly thing, which is something of a cross between a shark hook and a miniature screw propeller. "What's she doing, bo'sun?"

"Doing? Wot she's a-doing on, sir?" he replied, repeating my own words and mouthing them over with much gusto. "Why, sir, she's going sixteen knots still, and the bloomin' old grampus has been keeping it up since four bells. She carries the wind with her, too; for jist as we bore up north awhile ago, astern the chase, I'm blessed if the breeze didn't shift round likewise to the south'ard, keepin' astern of us as before!"

"Where is the chase?" I asked, not being able to see forwards on account of the swelling foresail and other intervening objects. "I suppose she's right ahead, eh?"

"No, sir. Jist come here alongside o' me at the taffrail," said he. "Now foller my finger, sir. Look, there she is, two points off our starboard bow. She was hull down jist now, but we're rising her fast, sir. See, there she be right under the foreyard there!"

I looked in the direction he indicated, and could very faintly in the distance see something white like a sail, almost out of sight on the ocean ahead.

"But, Masters," said I, having no glass with me to bring her nearer, and seeing she was too far off for me to distinguish her with the naked eye, "are you certain she's the same craft?"

"As sartin, Master Haldane," he answered solemnly, "aye, as sartin as that when we goes aboard her, as go aboard her we must, we shall both be a-goin' to our death! That's the 'ghost-ship,' Master Haldane, as you and I've seed three times afore. May I die this minute if she ain't!"

"Die! don't talk such nonsense, Masters."

"It ain't no nonsense, Master Haldane," he retorted, and looking the picture of misery and unhappiness. "That there ship means no good to you nor me, nor to none of them as seed her afore, I knows. It's her, sure enuff. No mortal ship could sail on like that continually since Friday, right afore the wind, and still allers be a-crossin' our hawser, though her canvas be tore to ribbings and never a man aboard, as we've seed. It ain't nat'ral, nohow. Aye, she be the 'ghost-ship' and no mistake,—and God help us all!"

I noticed at the moment a telescope lying on the top of the saloon skylight, which Mr Fosset must have left behind him in his haste, when he came from the bridge to hail the skipper and then hurried back to his post; so, quickly catching up the glass, I scanned the distant sail, which grew more perceptible every minute.

Yes, there was no doubt about it.

She was a full-rigged ship running before the wind, but going a bit every now and then off her course as if under no proper guidance or management, while all her sails were torn and hanging anyhow, and her spars and rigging apparently at sixes and sevens, as though she had been terribly mauled by the weather.

"For Heaven's sake, tell me!" cried the colonel, who had approached me unobserved while I was looking through the telescope. "Tell me, is she there? Can you see her?"

"Yes, sir," said I. "I can see her, and it's the same ship I saw the other night. It is the Saint Pierre!"

"Ha!" he exclaimed, his black eyes flashing into a passion that made him forget his lameness, as he strode to the side of the vessel, where, resting one hand on the rail, he shook the other menacingly at the ill- fated craft, now with her hull well above the horizon. "Ah, you black devils, we'll settle you at last!"

Meanwhile, the skipper, who had gone up to join Mr Fosset on the bridge after leaving us below so suddenly, was making his way aft again; and on the colonel turning round from the rail he found him at his back, looking over his shoulder at the ship we were approaching.

The skipper was all agog with excitement.

"By George!" he exclaimed. "We're closing on her fast now, colonel!"

"How soon, Senor Applegarth, do you think we'll be before we're alongside her?"

"In about half an hour at the outside, sir, unless something gives way. We would have been up to her before if she had been lying-to; but she's going ahead too, like ourselves, and not making bad way either, considering the state she's in aloft, and her yawing this way and that. It is wonderful how she keeps on!"

"Oh dear! oh dear! she's possessed, as your companion here said just now to the young Senor Haldane."

"Oh, you mustn't mind what the bo'sun says," observed the skipper. "He's chock full of the old superstitions of the sea, and makes mountains out of molehills."

"The deuce! he's not far wrong about the Saint Pierre, though, for if ever a ship had the devil aboard, I'm sure she has, in the shape of that villainous black 'marquis'!"

"Then the sooner the better for us to see about 'Scotching' your de'il," cried the skipper with a laugh that meant business, I knew. "I'm now going to call the hands aft and prepare for the fight, and they shall have it hot, I can tell you," said he.

"Have you got arms enough for them, sir? Those rascals will make a stubborn resistance, and there's a big lot of them still left in the ship, remember!"

The skipper laughed outright at this.

"Lord bless you, colonel!" said he, "the steamers of our line are fitted out in their way very like men-of-war; and I have enough rifles and cutlasses in the arm chest below to rig out more than twice the number of the crew we carry, besides revolvers for all the officers. This, however, will be short and sharp work, as we're going to run your black devils by the beard; so I shall only serve out cutlasses."

"But you'll spare me a revolver, Senor Applegarth? I left mine, as you are aware, behind me," said he with a smile, "and I should like to have another shot or two at my friend, the 'marquis'!"

"Aye, aye, colonel, you shall have one, and a good one too, and so shall all those who know how to use a pistol properly; but, for close hand-to- hand fighting, I prefer cold steel myself."

Colonel Vereker joined in the skipper's grim chuckle, which suited his mood well.

"Yes, sir, that's true," he rejoined; "but a revolver isn't to be sneezed at, all the same!"

"No colonel, your leg'll bear witness to that," said the skipper as he turned to me. "Run down quickly, Haldane, to the arm chest in my state room—here are the keys—and pick out a dozen or so cutlasses and boarding-pikes, with a revolver apiece for all on the quarter-deck, and half a dozen rounds of ammunition. You can get Weston to help you to bring the lot up here. Look smart; I want to serve them out at once, as we're now coming up with the chase, and there's no time to lose."

Down I scuttled into the saloon with the skipper's bunch of keys; and, calling the steward to help me, went into the after cabin, where Garry O'Neil still remained, wetting the bandage round the head of the French captain, and doing it too with greater delicacy of touch than the most experienced and flippant of hospital nurses.

Garry was delighted when I told him what I came about.

"Houly Moses!" he ejaculated; "why that's the virry job for me, sure. Here, Weston, you ugly thaife of a son of a gun, come here! There's going to be some rare foightin' on deck prisintly; an' as I know ye don't loike to be afther spoilin' that beautiful mug o' yours, you jist sit down there, alannah, an' moind this poor chap here till I come below ag'in, whilst I help Musther Haldane, too, with thim murtherin' arms that give one a could chill, faith, to look at, bad cess to 'em."

He gave me a sly wink as he said this, which was unperceived by Weston, who accepted the proposed change of duty with an alacrity that showed he had no stomach for warfare procedure, and Garry and I very speedily took up a bundle of weapons each on to the poop, laying them down close beside the skipper, who stood against the rail.

"Ah, doctor," said the colonel, who was sitting down near by on the skylight hatchway, resting himself before the battle should begin, on seeing Garry come up the companion, "how's my poor friend now?"

"Faith, he's still unconshus," replied he, handing him a big revolver with a cartridge belt attached; "ah, sure, I 'spect he'll remain so, too, colonel, till you've had toime to polish off the rest of thim schoindrels we're afther. Indade, it's going off loike that the poor crayture will be, I'm afeard, whin it comes to the ind. I don't think he'll ayther spake or move ag'in in this loife."

But Garry was mistaken in this diagnosis of his, as events turned out; but, ere he could say another word, just then as the colonel was going to make a reply to him, the skipper hammered on the deck with a marling- spike to attract attention and give a hail at the very top of his voice that made us all jump, it was so loud and unexpected.

"Ahoy there, forrad!" he shouted in stentorian tones that rang fore and aft like a trumpet. "Bo'sun, send the hands aft."

"Say, cap'en," sang out Mr Fosset from the bridge, "shall I call up the fellows down below in the stoke-hold, sir?"

"Aye. Ring the engine-room gong. I want every man-jack on deck that Mr Stokes can spare; tell him so."

While old Masters was sounding his boatswain's pipe and while busy feet were tramping aft, the men were beginning to cluster in the waist immediately below the back of the poop. And here Captain Applegarth stood stern and erect like an old lion, his cap off and his wavy grey hair fluffed out over his head by the wind. While this was happening we could hear the distant sound of the engine-room bell, and then there came a hail from Mr Fosset.

"Mr Stokes is sending up every one from below, sir," yelled out the first mate. "He says he can manage by himself now that we're nearly up to the chase, with the help of a couple of the other firemen; and the engineers and stokers, the whole lot of them in a batch, have volunteered to come on deck and join the boarding party."

"That's your sort, my hearty," cried the skipper enthusiastically, looking down at the sea of excited faces below gazing up expectantly at his, awaiting the stirring words they knew to be coming, all having got wind of the approaching fray. "Now, men, I have summoned the lot of you aft because—well, because I've got something to say to you."

"Bully for you, old man," exclaimed one of the men, amidst a grand roar, while I could distinguish, distinctly above the other voices of the crew, Accra Prout, the mulatto cook's laugh as he called out approvingly, "Golly, dat so, sonny!"

"Heavens!" ejaculated Colonel Vereker, seemingly, like myself, to recognise the voice at once, "who's that?" said he sharply.

Accra Prout, who stood a head taller than any other of the men clustered round him, caught sight of the colonel as the latter cast his eyes downwards, rising from his seat and coming to the side of the skipper; and the mulatto's eyes grew as large as saucers, while his eyeballs rolled in delight and his wide mouth extended itself from ear to ear.

"Bress de Lor'!" he cried out, with all a darkey's emphatic enthusiasm, breaking into a huge guffaw that was almost hysterical—"bress de Lor'! it's de massa; it's Mass' Vereker from de plantation, for surh!"

"Yes, it's me, myself, sure enough, Prout; and I'm right glad to see you," said the colonel, equally delighted. "There, Senor Applegarth, didn't I tell you any of my old Louisianian hands would like to see me again, in spite of what I said about those infernal niggers who seized our ship?"

"Aye, you did, colonel, you did," replied the skipper, waving his hand in the air; "but never mind that now—I'm going to speak to the crew."

"Now, me bhoys, altogether," cried Garry O'Neil, looking over the top of the booby-hatch over the companion-way, "three cheers for the cap'en, horray!"

"Horray!" roared the lot below with a kindred enthusiasm, "Horray! Horray!"

"We're almost within hail now of the chase, sir," sang out Mr Fosset from the bridge when the echo of the last deafening cheer had died away; "I'm going to slow down, so that we can sheer up alongside."

"That's just what I was waiting for," said the skipper in answer to this. "Now, men, you see that ship ahead of us?"

"Aye," called out the foremost hand, who had before spoken—the usual leader, and the wit of the fo'c's'le—"the ghost-ship, cap'en."

"Well, ghost-ship, devil-ship, or whatever she may be, my lads, we're going to board her and rescue a young lady, a child in age, the daughter of my friend, Colonel Vereker here, and a lot of white men like yourselves, who are now at the mercy of a gang of black demons who have murdered the rest of the passengers and crew and taken possession of the vessel. Are you going to stand by me, lads?"

His answer was another deafening cheer, heartier and louder even than the first.

"Ah, I thought I could reckon on your help," cried the skipper in a tone of proud satisfaction, glancing round at the colonel. "I have got your tools handy for you, too, my lads; and if you will come up to the poop in single file by the port-ladder, going down again by the starboard gangway, each shall be supplied in turn. Mr O'Neil, please serve out the cutlasses and boarding-pikes. Now, my men, way aloft there! Single file, and no crushing, mind, and we'll get the job done all the quicker!"

Ere he had finished speaking the arming of the men had already begun, and within a very few minutes the cutlasses and long boarding-pikes had all been distributed, every man having some weapon.

"Now, bo'sun, pipe the men to their stations," sang out the skipper, who appeared to have already matured his plan of action. "Starboard watch forrad, port watch aft, and all the stokers and firemen amidships, under the bridge. Have a couple of hands, too, in the forechains, with a hawser and grapnel, ready to make fast to the ship when we come alongside her."

"Aye, aye, sir," hailed back Masters. "Starboard watch ahoy! Away forrads with you along o' me!"

Our engines had already slackened speed; and, the helm being put down, we came up to the wind, to leeward of the ship and not a half cable's length away from her, broadside-on.

"Stand by there, forrad," shouted the skipper. "Ship ahoy there! Surrender, or we'll run you aboard."

A wild savage yell came back in reply from a number of half-naked negroes who were mustered on the after part of the vessel, as well as on the forecastle, not a single white man being visible, while her Tricolour flag—so conspicuous before, and which I fancied having seen but half an hour or so previously when looking at her through the telescope—was now no longer to be seen.

Could our worst fears have been realised?

Another savage yell almost confirmed the thought. "Heavens!" exclaimed Colonel Vereker, rendered almost frantic with grief and excitement, and noticing the appalling evidences of the Haytians' triumph, while we stared aghast at each other. "My poor darling child, and those brave fellows I left behind, where are they all; where are they? For God's sake find them! Alas! alas! those black devils have murdered them all."



CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

A FREE FIGHT.

But hardly had the colonel given vent to his despairing exclamation, expressive alike of his own dismay and ours also, when the bitter feeling of disappointment at being too late, that had for the moment weighed down upon us, crushing our enthusiasm, was suddenly banished and the hearts of all filled with renewed hope and fierce determination.

We were not too late after all!

No.

For as we gazed in blank surprise at the howling mob of Haytians, who appeared to have gained complete possession of the Saint Pierre, and were dancing about and gesticulating in their wild, devilish fashion, calling out to us with wild derisive cries, as if mocking at our efforts to save those whom they had already butchered, a bright flame of fire flashed out from the skylight hatch of the doomed ship, followed by the sharp crack of a revolver; and at the same instant one of the half-naked devils massed on the poop leaped into the air and then fell on his face flat on the deck, uttering a yell of agony as he writhed his limbs in the throes of death.

An exulting cheer broke from all of us in the Star of the North on seeing this, every man gripping his weapon tightly, and setting his teeth hard, ready for action, as the two vessels sidled up nearer and nearer.

Then if word were wanted to spur us on, the skipper gave that word with a vengeance!

"By George! my lads, we're in time yet to save the child and our other white comrades!" he cried out loudly, at the same time jumping into the mizzen rigging, where he hung on the shrouds with one hand, while in the other he held a cutlass which he had hastily clutched up, whirling it round his lionlike old grey head. "See, men, they've retreated to the cabin below, where they're fighting for their lives to the last. Tumble up, my lads, and save them, like the British sailors that you are! Boarders, away!"

As he said this, Mr Fosset, who was still on the bridge conning the old barquey, having at once ported our helm, on the skipper holding up his cutlass, taking this for a signal, we came broadside-on, slap against the hull of the other ship with a jolt that shook her down to her very kelson, rolling a lot of the darkies, who were grouped aft, off their legs like so many ninepins. At the same moment, before the two craft had time to glide apart, both having way upon them, old Masters forward, and Parrell, the quartermaster, who was stationed in the waist of our vessel, just under the break of the poop, hooked on grapnels, with hawsers attached, to the weather rigging of the Saint Pierre; and ere the skipper's rallying cry and our answering cheer had died away, drowned by the voice of our escaping steam rushing up the funnels on the engines coming to a stop, now that their duty for the nonce was done, there we were moored hard and fast together, alongside the whilom dreaded "ghost-ship!"

Then with another wild hurrah that made the ringbolts in the deck jingle, and swamped the sound of the rushing steam and everything, the men, closing up behind the skipper, who led us so gallantly over the side, far in advance, brave-hearted old sea dog that he was, bounded across the intervening bulwarks, and were the next instant engaged in all the maddening excitement of a hand-to-hand tussle with the black villains, pistol shot, sword cut and pike thrust coming in turn into play, amid a babel of hoarse shouts of rage and cheers and savage yells—mingled with the swish of blows from capstan bars, the loud reports of revolvers fired off at close range and the heavy thud of falling bodies as they tumbled headlong on the deck ever and anon, accompanied by some cry of agony or groan of pain too deep for utterance.

Aye, it was a discord of devilry that must have appeared a veritable pandemonium to the spirits of the air, were any such looking down on the wrathful, sanguinary scene from the clear blue heavens above, all radiant now with a golden glow that came from the west, where the declining sun was just beginning to sink below the horizon!

"Fuaghaballah, may the divvle take the hindmost!" cried Garry O'Neil, leaping after the skipper on to the poop of the Saint Pierre, a revolver in his right fist and a cutlass in his left, laying about him with a will amongst the mass of infuriated negroes who tried to resist his rush, clutching at his legs and arms in vain, for he seemed bewitched. "Come on wid ye, me darlints, an' let us make mincemate of 'em, faith!"

I followed in his wake, but a crowd of our men, some of whom had served in the navy and were accustomed to the work, pushed me on one side, going into the thick of the fight themselves, and all was such a jumble of confusion that I hardly knew where I was until "a pretty tidy tap on the top of my head," as Garry would have said, brought back my recollection in a very effective manner, when I found myself right in front of an extremely ugly-looking negro, whose appearance was not improved by a slice having been taken off the side of his face, and from which blood was streaming down all over his black body, and that destitute of clothing.

I noticed that this gentleman had a long piece of wood like a boat stretcher in his hands, with which he had evidently given me the gentle reminder I have mentioned, being brought to this conclusion by the fact that the rascal had it raised ready to deal another blow.

Putting up my arm instinctively to ward off the impending stroke that I saw coming, I cocked and levelled my revolver at him in an instant.

Before I could fire, however, some one behind me shoved me aside again, and crash came a heavy capstan bar down upon the negro's skull, which I heard crack like a walnut shell as he dropped dead on his face.

"Golly, Mass' Hald'n," exclaimed Accra Prout, our stalwart mulatto cook, whose sinuous arm had thus incontinently settled the dispute between my sable opponent and myself. "I'se guess dis chile gib dat black debble goss, noh ow!"

But ere I could say a word to him for his timely aid, Accra Prout had bounded onward in front, and I then saw he was following Colonel Vereker, who had managed somehow or other, in spite of his lameness, to gain the deck of his old ship along with the rest of us.

Crack, crack, crack, went his revolver with venomous iteration from the other side of the vessel, where he was standing by the bulwarks, close to the hatchway of the companion-ladder leading to the cabin below, which he was apparently endeavouring to reach, while a crowd of Haytians barred his further progress towards those imprisoned in the cabin, whom they thus prevented his releasing, a fresh foe starting up for every one he disposed of, and a rough and terrible fight going on all round him all the time.

"'Top a minnit, Mass' V'reker!" shouted Accra Prout, darting into the middle of the throng, clearing a pathway for himself with the capstan bar. "I'se here; I'se come help you soon!"

"A thousand devils!" hissed a tall black near by—a man with a large, crinkly, ink-black moustache, and certainly with the most satanic visage I had ever beheld before. "A thousand devils!" repeated he, giving him a thrust with a large knife that pierced poor Accra's arm, and making him drop the capstan bar. "Take care of yourself—beast!"

A cry from the colonel told me who this was.

"Ah, villain, villain!" he sang out, looking him full in the face and grinding his teeth and trying with all his might, but vainly, to get at him through the press of struggling figures by whom he was surrounded. "I've been looking for you, Marquis des Coupgorges!"

The black scoundrel gave out a shrill laugh like that of a hyena, as Colonel Vereker had described it to us when telling his yarn.

"Pardon me, sir, I am here," he yelled out mockingly. "I am here. I do not run away like your white trash! Why don't you come and fight me? Bah! I spit on you, my fine plantation colonel. When I get at you I will serve you just as I did your sly slave the other day, whom you sent to betray us, though you, yourself, were too great a coward to come amongst us, yes, to come amongst us yourself. Aha! colonel."

He said this in plain English, which language he spoke as fluently as he did French, the native language of Hayti, uttering his abusive threats loud enough for us to hear every syllable; but though I aimed at him while he was speaking twice point blank, and my revolver spoke out quite as loudly as he, while the colonel likewise shot at him and the skipper made a slash in his direction with his cutlass, the miscreant escaped all our attacks without a single wound, dodging away from us amongst his dusky compatriots, who were now pretty thickly mixed up with our men in a fierce melee, at the further end of the poop, overlooking the waist below.

In the midst of this awful scrimmage there came a wild rush aft of all the remaining blacks who had been engaged with some of the hands amidships, pursued by our second boarding party, led by Mr Fosset and Stoddart, who had made their way over the bows and cleared the fo'c's'le, fighting onward step by step along the upper deck; and hemmed in fast thus, between two fires, the black desperadoes made a last stand, refusing to surrender, or throw down their arms in spite of all promises of quarter on our part.

All of them could see for themselves how completely overmatched they were, and must have known the utter uselessness of attempting any further resistance to us; but the mutineers of the negro portion of the Saint Pierre's crew, who were now in the majority, feared to give in owing to the fact of their believing they would be ultimately hanged if taken alive after the atrocities they had committed; so being of the opinion they were bound to be killed in any case, they determined apparently, if die they must, they would die fighting.

Whatever might be their motive or conviction, I will give them the credit of being plucky, and must say that they fought bravely, though with a ferocity that was more than savage, to the bitter end, their last rally on the break of the poop being the fiercest episode of the fray, several hand-to-hand combats going on at one and the same time with hand pikes and capstan bars whirling about over the heads of those engaged, where cutlass cuts were met with knife-thrusts from the formidable long- bladed weapons the negroes carried in their hands only to sheathe them in the bodies of their white antagonists.

My brain got dizzy as I watched the mad turmoil and my blood was at fever heat, taking part in the fight too, you may be sure, whenever I saw an opening, and dealing a blow here or parrying one there, as chance arose, with the best of them, young though I was, and totally inexperienced in such matters!

It was coming near to the finish, being too warm work to continue much longer, and I think all of us had had pretty well enough of it, when, looking round for Colonel Vereker, whom I suddenly missed from among the combatants, I saw him struggling with one of the blacks in a regular rough and tumble tussle on the deck.

The two were rolling about close to the after skylight from whence we had observed the flash of the pistol shot as we approached the ship, and which the colonel had been trying to get near to ever since he boarded her, but had been prevented from reaching by one obstacle or another until now, when this negro clutched hold of him and forced him back again.

He and the Haytian were tightly locked in a deadly embrace, the negro gripping him with both arms round the body, and the colonel endeavouring to release his revolver hand, the two rolling over and over on the deck towards the rail forward.

"Ha!" muttered the colonel, who was hard pressed, through his set teeth. "Only let me get free."

Strangely enough, the glass of the skylight above the spot where the pair were struggling was instantly shattered from within, as if in response to his muttered cry; and with a loud bark that could have been heard a mile off, a big dog burst forth from the opening, making straight for the colonel and his relentless foe.

Then there came a startled yell from the negro, who, releasing his late antagonist, staggered to his feet.

"Holy name of—" he screamed out in wild affright, but he had not time to reach the concluding word of his sentence—the name of his patron saint, no doubt—"the devil!"

For before he could get so far, giving a fierce growl, the dog at once sprang up at him, his fangs meeting in the Haytian's throat, whereupon the latter, toppling backwards over the poop-rail, fell into the waist below, with the dog hanging on to him; and I noticed presently that both were dead, the brave animal who had come so opportunely to the rescue of the colonel, his master, being stabbed to the heart by a knife which the negro still held in his lifeless hand, while his own neck had been torn to pieces by the dog whom death could not force to relinquish his grip!

Immediately running up to the colonel, who was feebly trying to rise, his wrestle with the black having crippled his wounded leg and arm, I helped him to his feet as quickly as I could, while others clustered round to shelter us.

"Poor Ivan, true as steel in death as in life!" he faintly muttered, glancing from the break of the poop on the two bodies huddled together below, the blood of the faithful dog flowing with that of his ruthless foe into a crimson pool that was gradually extending its borders from the middle of the deck to the lee scuppers. "He has defended my little Elsie, I am sure, to the last, likewise, even as he defended me. I hope and trust my child is still safe in the cabin. Help me aft, my lad, to see; quick, quick!"

Of course I assisted him as well as I could under the circumstances, but as he limped along towards the companion-hatchway, the leader of the desperadoes, that villainous "marquis," who I thought had met with his just deserts long since, not having seen him for some little time among the other fighters, most unexpectedly jumped from the rigging in front of the colonel and aimed a vindictive blow at him with a marline-spike.

This must have settled the colonel if it had fallen on his uncovered head. Fortunately though, dropping quickly the colonel's arm, I fended off the blow with the revolver I held in my hand, while at the same time I gave the scoundrel a drive in the face that must have astonished his black lordship a good deal, for my clenched fist met him square on the mouth and shook his teeth, making them rattle, as well as disarranging the twist of his crinkly moustache!

He came at me with a snarl like an angry tiger, and then, hugging me tight, with his hideous black face thrust close against mine, and his muscular arms pressed tightly around my ribs, he squeezed every ounce of breath out of my body.

I thought my last hour had come.

But help came to my aid from a most unlooked-for quarter.

"Ah! you blackguard," cried a voice that sounded dimly in my ears, my head at the time seeming to be whirling round like the arms of a windmill from the sense of suffocation and the rush of blood to the brain. "Coward! miscreant! you are here again."

Breathless though I was, I was so surprised, and indeed frightened at the voice and accent of the speaker, which I immediately recognised, that I at once came to myself and opened wide my half-closed eyes.

Good heavens! Shall I ever forget the sight? Yes; it was Captain Alphonse, whom I had last seen only half an hour or so previously in the skipper's cot on board the Star of the North, when Garry O'Neil said he would probably never wake to consciousness again in this life, or move out of the skipper's state room!

Here he was though, all the same, looking like an apparition from the dead, wild, ghastly, awful, but quite sufficiently in his senses to recognise his terrible enemy, the pseudo "marquis."

It is a scene I shall never forget, as I remarked before.

Like poor Ivan, and with equal ferocity, the Frenchman sprang at the ugly villain's throat, the whole lot of us tumbling headlong on the deck together, which caused the wretch to release me in order to protect himself from Captain Alphonse, who, kneeling on the top of him, hammered him against the bulwarks as though trying to beat the life out of him.

Making a last desperate effort, the Haytian "marquis" gripped his antagonist round the waist as he previously gripped me, dragging him down beside him again; and then, as the two came with all their might against the side of the ship where the port flap was loose, the whole of the planking gave way, and poor Captain Alphonse, with that scoundrel the black "marquis," crashed through the splintering wood together, falling with a heavy splash overboard into the sea beneath, going to the bottom locked in each other's arms—a terrible ending to the terrible episode of this, their last meeting.

For the minute the colonel seemed overwhelmed with grief at this awful and sudden termination of poor Captain Alphonse's life, and we would all sooner have seen him die unconsciously if not quietly, in his bed; but such are the ways of Providence, and we cannot control them!

But this day certainly witnessed a series of surprises, so it seemed to me, the most wonderful things happening every moment.

Colonel Vereker had dragged himself as well as he could, up to where I lay on the deck, after being set free from the bearlike hug of the negro, helping me up on my legs in the same Good Samaritan way in the which I had saved him shortly before; and we were both looking over the side, talking excitedly of the dreadful catastrophe that had just happened, and wondering whether the poor captain's body would rise to the surface again, when all of a sudden, something bright crossing the deck caught my eye like a flash of light, and I heard the sound of light and hurried footsteps.

Wheeling round hastily I was amazed at the beautiful object that met my gaze, for I saw standing there, only a pace or two off, a lovely young girl, with a profusion of long silky hair of a bright golden hue, that streamed in a tangled mass over her shoulders, and reaching down almost to her feet.

"My father, my dear father!" she exclaimed in broken and ecstatic tones, her voice sounding to me like the soft cooing of a dove, as she flew and nestled herself into the outstretched arms of the colonel, who had also turned round at her approach, some sympathetic feeling having warned him of her coming, telling him who it was even before he saw her.

"Oh, my father! my father! At last, at last!"

And then, unable to control herself longer, she burst into a passion of tears and sobs.

Colonel Vereker, on his part, was equally overcome.

"God be thanked!" cried he, raising his face to heaven, clasping her at the same time fondly to his heart and kissing her trembling lips again and again. "My darling one, my own little daughter, whom I thought I had lost for ever, but whom the good God has preserved to be the delight of my eyes again, my little one, my precious!"

For a few minutes I too had a lump in my throat, but turned aside, and then, not wishing to appear to be observing them, I left them alone and went off to another part of the ship.



CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

HORS DE COMBAT.

A grand hurrah just then burst forth from the deck below us, where the skipper and most of the men were massed, telling as plainly as triumphant cheer could tell, that the fight was ended, and that victory had crowned our arms with success. I rushed back to tell the colonel.

On hearing my footsteps, however, little Elsie turned round and caught sight of me.

"Oh, my father!" said she, untwining herself from the colonel's embrace, though she still nestled up close to him, as she stared at me shyly, with a puzzled look on her mignonne face. "Why, who is this young sir, my father? I seem to know him, and yet I do not remember having ever seen him before!"

"Look at him again, darling one," said her father, petting her caressingly, while another hearty cheer went up from the hands in the waist. "He is Senor Dick Haldane, a gallant young gentleman whom you must thank, my little daughter, for having saved my life."

At this the graceful young girl advanced a step or two towards me, and catching hold of my hand, before I could prevent her, kissed it, greatly to my confusion; as albeit it was an act expressive amongst the Spanish, with whom she had been brought up, of deferential courtesy and gratitude, but it made me blush up to my eyes and feel hot all over.

"A thousand thanks, sir," she began; but as she raised her eyes to my face in thus giving utterance to her thanks for having, as the colonel had told her, saved her father's life, a flood of recollection seemed to come upon her, and she exclaimed:

"Ah, I remember now! My father, yes, he is like the gentleman whom I saw on the deck of the steamer that awful night when the negroes rose up against us—last Friday, was it not? But it seems so long ago to me! You, you naughty papa, would not believe that your little girl had seen anything at all, not even a ship, but that I only fancied it in my foolishness. However, there is the same steamer that I saw (pointing with her finger to the Star of the North), and here is the same, for I am sure he is the same, the very same young officer. Am I not right?" And looking up at her father, she exclaimed, "Your little girl told the truth after all."

"And you, young lady," said I, smiling at her recognition of me, strange coincidence as it was, corroborating my own experience of the same eventful night, "yes; you are the same little girl I saw on board the 'ghost-ship,' as all the men here called your vessel, not believing, likewise, my story that I had seen her or you either. Yes, I would have known you anywhere. You are the girl whom I saw with the dog!"

The next moment I could have bitten my tongue out, though, for my thoughtlessness in alluding to the poor dog; for at the bare mention of him Elsie's face, which had a sort of absent, wandering look about it still, at once lighted up, and she glanced round in all directions.

"Ah, I declare I had quite forgotten Ivan in the joy and happiness of seeing you again, my father," she exclaimed excitedly. "Where is he, the brave fellow? Ivan, Ivan, you dear old dog. Come here; come here, sir, directly!"

She looked round again, with a half smile playing about the corners of her pretty rosebud of a mouth and a joyous light in her eyes, expecting her faithful friend and companion would come bounding up to her side; but she now waited and watched and listened in vain, there being no response to her summons either by bark or bound or wag of poor Ivan's bushy tail.

Nor would there be any more, for his ringing bark was hushed, his body and tail alike stiff and cold, while his noble heart which only throbbed with affection for those whom he loved when living, had stopped beating for aye.

"My dear child, poor Ivan is dead!" said Colonel Vereker tenderly after a short pause, drawing the young girl up to him so that she might not see the gruesome sight on the deck below. "The brave dog sacrificed his life for mine, and but for his help, little one, I should not now be by your side."

This account of the poor animal's heroic end, however, did not comfort little Elsie, who gave a startled glance at her father's face; where, seeing something there that made her comprehend her loss, she buried her golden head on his breast, sobbing as though her heart would break.

"Poor, poor, dear Ivan; he never left me once, never, my father, since you—you went out of the cabin that last night and told him to watch me!" she exclaimed presently, in halting accents between her convulsive sobs, neither the colonel or myself dry-eyed as we listened to her tale, you may be sure. "But—but all at once, after all the noise and that dreadful firing that seems now to go through my ears, I—I heard your voice quite distinctly on the deck; and so, too, did poor Ivan, for I saw him instantly put up his ears, while he whined and looked beseechingly at us."

"Well, after that, my child," said the colonel, on her stopping for the moment, overcome with emotion, "what happened next?"

"He made a dash at the cabin table and jumped up on it, and then the poor fellow growled savagely at some one outside. Then—then before I could hold him back he made a most desperate spring and sprung right up through the glass roof on the top of the sky—skylight, and he must have cut himself very very much. Poor, poor doggie! And now you say my poor Ivan is dead, and that I shall never see the dear good faithful creature again. Oh, my father!"

At this point the young girl again broke down.

Nor were her tears a mere passing tribute of grief. For, though dead, Ivan is not forgotten, like some people, the remembrance of whom is as evanescent as the scent of the flowers that hypocritical mourners may ostentatiously scatter upon their graves; his little mistress, little no longer, preserving his memory yet green in her heart of hearts, close to which she wears always a small locket containing likenesses of her father and mother, together with a miniature of Ivan—her father's preserver—with a tiny lock added from the brave dog's curly black coat.

Some ultra-sanctimonious persons may feel inclined to cavil with this association on Elsie's part of "immortal beings," as they would style her parents, and the recollection she cherishes of a "dead brute," because, forsooth, they hold that her four-footed favourite had no soul; but were these gentry to broach the subject before her, being a somewhat outspoken young lady from her foreign bringing up, which puts her beyond the pale of boarding-school punctiliousness, she would probably urge that she estimated poor Ivan's sagacious instinct combined with his courage and noble self-sacrifice, at a far higher level than the paltry apology for a soul that passes current for the genuine article with matter-of-fact religionists of the stamp of her questioner.

But Elsie was "little Elsie" still, at the time of which I am speaking, and too young, perhaps, for such thoughts to occur to her mind, which at the moment was too full of her loss.

The cheering that had followed the last tussle of our men with the black mutineers had now ceased, and all these things happening, you must understand, much more rapidly than I can talk or attempt to chronicle them, the skipper, with Mr Fosset and Garry O'Neil, came hurriedly up on the poop.

Both expressed their unbounded delight at seeing the child was safe and in the care of her father.

Sure, an' what's the little colleen cryin' for? eagerly inquired Garry, his smoke-begrimed face, which bore ample evidence of the desperate struggle in which he had been so gallantly engaged, wearing a look of deep commiseration as he gazed from her father to me, and then again at her. "Faith, I hope she's not been hurt or frightened?"

"No, thank God!" replied the colonel huskily. "Grieving for her poor dog Ivan, who—"

"Och yes, I saw the noble baste," interrupted Garry in his quick, enthusiastic way. "Begorrah, colonel, he fought betther than any two- legged Christian amongst us, an' I can't say more than that for him, sure, paice to his name!"

Before he could say anything further, and you know he was a rare one to talk when once he commenced, the skipper advanced again, holding out his hand to the colonel exclaiming— "Yes, thank God you are all right and that your little child is safe, and escaped any harm from those scoundrels, except her nerves probably being much shaken, but that she will soon recover at her age—and I told you she should be restored to you, you know. By George! Though, we've paid them out at last for demon's work aboard here!"

"The devils!" ejaculated Colonel Vereker savagely, his mood changing as he recollected all he had seen and suffered at their hands. "Have you killed them all?"

"All but half a dozen of the rascals, whom we had a rare hunt after through the hold and fo'c's'le before we could collar them. They are fast bound now, though, lashed head and feet to the mainmast bitts; and it will puzzle them to wriggle themselves loose from old Masters' double hitches, I know. Besides which, two of our men are guarding there, with boarding-pikes in their hands and orders to run 'em through the gizzard if they offer to stir."

"Faith," observed Garry O'Neil reflectively, "It was as purty a bit of foighting as I ivver took a hand in, whilst it lasted!"

"But let us go and see what has become of all those chaps below—all those you mentioned as belonging to the French crew, whom you left on board with your daughter," went on the skipper. "We saw the flash of a pistol, you remember, when we came up alongside, and somebody must have prevented those villains from getting into the cabin, or else—"

He stopped here and looked meaningly at Elsie.

"Heavens!" exclaimed the colonel, attempting to rise, but falling back on the hen-coop along the side of the bulwarks he had been using for a temporary seat, he seemed so utterly exhausted. "Ah, those brave fellows, I was almost forgetting them; but I can't move, Senor Applegarth, or I should have gone down before this to see what had become of my old comrades; but I'm helpless, as you see."

Elsie now lifted her head, looked up and turned towards the skipper.

"They are all wounded," said she, clasping her hands together and with a look of fright on her face. "Two of the men—the French sailors, I mean—and the English gentleman."

"That's the little Britisher I told you about, who was so plucky," explained the colonel—"Mr Johnson."

"Well, my father," continued the young girl, "these three rushed down the stairs into the cabin, shortly before the steamer thumped against the side of our ship, when I thought we were all going down to the bottom of the sea."

"Yes, my child," said the colonel encouragingly, "go on and tell us what happened next."

"The English gentleman spoke to me and said that the terrible negroes had conquered them all on deck, but that he and the two Frenchmen had escaped from them in time, and were going to barricade the doorway leading down from above to prevent the black men from coming below and murdering us all.

"He told me, though, did the kind English gentleman, that I must not be frightened and all would come right in the end, for that they had seen a very large steamer approaching, coming quite close to us, and that they would be able, he thought, to hold out until we were all rescued. They then piled up heaps and heaps of things against the door at the foot of the stairs where the sailors remained; then the Englishman stood on the table, under the skylight, to keep the negroes from getting through there. It was the Englishman who fired at them through the glass, for he was the only one who had a pistol, and he made a hole and then through that we heard all the shrieks and the noise of the pistols; and your voice, my father, Ivan heard, and then he jumped up through the hole, making a much bigger one, and ran to your rescue, my dear, dear father."

"But what has become of Monsieur Boisson, and Madame all this time; where were they?" asked the colonel, on Elsie thus concluding the account of what had occurred under her immediate notice, a little sob escaping her involuntarily at the mention of her poor dog's name, and at the recollection of what she had just witnessed. "Did they do anything, my dear child to help themselves, or you?"

"No, my father," she replied, apparently surprised at the question. "They are still in the big cabin at the end of the saloon where you left them when you went away, and, I'm afraid they are very ill indeed, for all the time the firing was going on overhead Madame was screeching and screaming, and I am sure I heard Monsieur groaning a good deal. He was doing so again just now, before I found my way upstairs to you, to find you, and to see what had happened, everything had become so suddenly still after all the noise, and—and—those—awful horrible yells of the negroes—oh! I—I—can hear them still!"

She turned quite pale when uttering the last words, words spoken with visible effort, shuddering all over and hiding her face again on her father's shoulder.

"Faith, sor, don't ask her any more questions," cried Garry, "but we'd betther be sayin' afther those poor fellows ourselves, an' at once, too!"

"Do quickly, sir doctor," said the colonel, "and I only wish I could come with you! but—"

"Now jist you shtop where ye are, me friend," rejoined Garry, putting out his hand to prevent his stirring from his seat. "Sure the cap'en an' me, with Dick Haldane here, will be enough to look afther 'em all."

With this he made for the companion-way and descended the "stairs," as Elsie, ignorant of nautical nomenclature, called the ladder, the skipper following close behind him.

On getting to the bottom we found the panels of the door smashed in, though of hard oak, strengthened with cross battens of the same stout wood, which showed to what fierce assault it had been subjected, the furniture piled up against it from within having duly prevented the negroes from finally forcing an entrance, as well, no doubt, as our appearance on the scene.